Space - G.H.O.S.T. SPACE HUB
The station was a scar on the dark, an iron asteroid carved to a cathedral—if cathedrals were bolted, welded, and made of premium metal. It hung out in the belt where rock and ice drifted like a old god's bones, far from the blue glimmer of Earth and the politics that bled it daily. Starlight skated over the station's facets and died out shortly in the distance.
Atlas watched that light die and thought about retirement.
Bora Bora. Sun, sand, a chair that didn't hum with the ghosts of a hundred black-ops briefings. He could almost feel warm grit under his feet before the deck beneath him shuddered and reminded him he was fifty, bone-tired, and married to a war he'd promised to end ten years ago.
G.H.O.S.T. had been born in that promise. The Elites had stitched it together from the wreckage of the Ace War: Ace with a bow and a smile you trusted against your better judgment; Atlas, an outlaw made ambassador; Griever and Viper; the machine-mind H.O.P.E.; and Grim, the boy who'd grown into a blade and then third Director of G.H.O.S.T. . They'd toppled Saro Toveli, a gifted individual who'd lost faith in humanity and took up a mantle to fight for powered supremacy—the Void - she decided nations were playthings and sparked a four year war. Ace took his last arrow and the last breath to do end it, and the world, in its ruin, needed caretakers.
Caretakers, it turned out, received more prejudice than thanks.
As society rebuilt, it also remembered how to hate. For every food line and rebuilt bridge, there was a placard that read SUPERS OUT and a fist to follow it. The Elites brokered peace by making themselves small. They made an agency the powerless could trust, put a non-powered relic like Atlas in charge, kept the powered in the shadows. It worked—mostly. The planet stopped screaming.
But out here, in the belt, the screaming was only ever delayed.
The floor tremored again. Not the gentle flex of a structure that has settled uneasily into its orbit. This was a gut-deep thump that plucked the tension wires of the station and hummed through Atlas's cybernetic forearm into his ribs.
He dragged his gaze from the glass. The Ionic Gate chamber two decks down pulsed on his HUD—an orange bloom where there should have been the cool green of status lights. R&D's pride and joy, the Gates carved short tunnels through space for ships too delicate or too important to take the long way. Only a handful of engineers and Atlas's security protocols could touch them.
Or so the checklist said.
"Of course," Atlas muttered. The silk of his suit pulled when he rolled his shoulders. It had survived a committee meeting; it would not enjoy what came next. He snapped the collar open, threw it aside leaving his tank top, and the gloves beneath hissed awake across his knuckles. His Zion blade slid free at his back with the liquid sigh that gave it its name, metal re-liquefying around a memory of edges.
Another tremor. This one came with a noise—air screaming through a wound somewhere it shouldn't.
By the time Atlas hit the Gate corridor, the station had begun to pull itself apart.
He saw it in the frost glossing the bulkhead seams, ice blooming along the ribs of the hallway as heat fled to the vacuum through a gash the size of a shuttle door. Lights strobed. Sirens tried to form a sentence and failed. Agents in pressure jackets crabbed along handholds, boots mag-locked, faces set in the stubborn calm of people who had drilled this nightmare enough times to pretend they expected it.
"Seal it!" someone shouted. "Number Four bulkhead!"
Atlas drove his cybernetic palm into the deck. Actuators screamed as plates rose and snapped into place like teeth. It slowed the station's bleed, but wind still dragged; loose tablets and a coffee mug flickered past him and vanished into the hole.
And through that wound came a jet.
Sleek midnight metal, longer and meaner than anything R&D had cleared for field work. No transponder. Lightning crawled red along its belly like something alive. The craft yawed, hung there for a heartbeat in the gale of stolen air, then opened its maw.
Five figures dropped from the hatch with the arrogant ease of people who had practiced this exact heresy into muscle memory. Behind them, a black flood of faceless troopers followed, limbs clean, steps crisp, rifles slung. The five wore the same armor as their army—matte, segmented, ruthless—but each visor had been tagged with a carved metal mask.
A Lion. A Tiger. A Falcon. A Snake... and a Chicken.
Atlas blinked in bewilderment. He'd fought on three doomsday events and faced death itself. He had bled out in a crater while a god of war made him an offer he couldn't refuse. He had seen stranger things than an armored man with a chicken on his face. But there was something insolent about it all the same.
"We don't have much time," The Snake said, voice filtered flat by the mask. He lifted a hand, and shadows uncoiled from his glove like wet cords. They licked along the ceiling. "Move."
The squad scattered to their assignments with terrifying choreography. The Falcon flickered into a sprint down the left corridor, rifle compacted against his shoulder, a neat ghost at speed. The Tiger went right, each bootstep a punch in the station's ground. The Chicken hefted a hammer that should have been illegal by the laws of physics and gravity. Lion rolled both shoulders as if the air bored her and drew twin pistols from thigh holsters—the weapons elongated with a metallic purr, barrels telescoping, coils lighting electric blue.
Atlas rose up to his feet, left facing the army the group had left behind.
The first three troopers fell to cuts they never saw, the Zion blade deforming, reforming, turning angles into wounds. Atlas's eyes smoked at the edges as the old fury took him—Tyranos's gift more craft than miracle. The world thinned to lines of approach and the timing between heartbeats. He stepped, and the air out of his lungs trailed flame.
Later, two agents would disagree about what they saw. One would swear Atlas vanished outright. Another would say time stumbled, the station froze, and then bodies arrived smacked on the floor. Both would agree on the smell—burnt ozone, hot metal, the salt of sweat and fear.
"Atlas," Lion called over the sirens as she leveled both pistols. "An honor."
"Guns." He slid under the first shot; it hosed past and melted a chunk of the bulkhead into a slick, smoking tooth. He knocked the second into a trooper's calf and listened without sympathy as the man screamed. "My disappointment is immeasurable."
Lion laughed, hot and surprised. She moved well, a dancer with murderous intent in each turn. Atlas let three shots chew at metal where he had been and, on the fourth, tilted his head a degree; the round grazed his cybernetic bicep and blur-plinked across the deck toward the screaming hole in the station. He unsheathed his second blade from his pants hidden pocket by his belt. The wind blade, his least favorite item, a gift from Tyranos to do his bidding to reach his yearly one kill toll for his servitude since his revival. He let the wind blade flow, made it a discus for one breath, and threw.
The wind blade struck Lion low in the thigh and pinned her to the grating.
She swore in Spanish, a language Atlas had learned little of, beauty spitting into fury. Veins of black spread from the wound, branching under the skin like roots seeking soil.
"Don't move," Atlas advised, closing the distance in two easy steps. "Unless you're curious what a thousand damned souls do when they finish choosing a path through you."
Her eyes were pitch dark behind the visor's spill. He hooked two fingers under the edge of her mask and ripped it free.
Out from under it revealed a beautiful woman nonetheless, murderous rage between her knitted brown eyebrows and her disheveled brunette hair.
Anitta Von Ross.
Of course. The Von Ross crest—a serpent knotting an axe—had slithered across too many crime scenes to count. He'd expected her in boardrooms and backrooms, not kicking doors on his station.
"Playing with others now?" Atlas said.
She spat at his boots, venom sharp enough to stain the steel. Her hand twitched toward the dagger hidden in her armor, but the cursed wind blade in her thigh pulsed once, black veins spidering higher. She froze, sweat slick at her temple.
Atlas crouched, voice flat.
"Don't. Unless you're curious what a thousand damned souls do when they finish choosing a path through you."
Her eyes burned hate into him. He almost pitied her. Almost.
Then the deck shook.
CLAAANNNGG.
The hammer fell from nowhere. Atlas twisted, too slow. The impact detonated on his cybernetic arm, pistons screaming, metal groaning. Sparks blinded him. His ribs rattled like dice in a cup as the weight drove him half to his knees.
Over him loomed the Chicken — armor hulking, hammer massive enough to look carved from a collapsed star.
Atlas shoved back, breath searing his throat.
"Of all the barnyard demons... I get the rooster with a sledge."
The hammer pressed harder. His vision blurred.
Then the shadows came alive.
They crawled like living tar across the walls, webbing the ceiling, drowning the light. From them stepped the Snake, calm, deliberate, glove dripping with black cords. Tiger and Falcon emerged beside him — one stomping heavy enough to make the deck plates quake, the other twitching fast enough to blur at the edges.
For a heartbeat, the chaos froze. Red sirens strobed, painting the five in hellfire light. Agents clawed at handholds down the corridor, screaming orders, some sucked into the breach's open wound. Alarms overlapped in a chorus of panic.
"Atlas," Snake said, his voice filtered, smooth as venom. "An honor to watch the last relic of a false age buckle."
Atlas grinned through blood.
"It'll take a little more than you upstarts to take me down."
The Snake ignored it, lifting his hand, shadows fattening overhead.
"G.H.O.S.T. dies tonight. Your station, your agents, your order. All of it."
Atlas spat blood onto the floor.
"Skip the sermon."
The hammer groaned. His ribs screamed. Tyranos's ember flared inside him — a curse disguised as a gift, that contract burned into his soul. Every fight fed it. Every soul owed. And when he was younger, when Tyrano's first blessed him, it had felt like power. Now it felt like a leash.
And he hated how much he still needed it.
His breath seethed out. Smoke curled. His eyes flared. And coldly he asked:
"What's the angle... Shane?"
The Snake stiffened. A name not spoken in years.
"...How," he hissed.
Atlas shoved the hammer slightly upwards under its crackling pressure, Zion blade snapping liquid-sharp into his grip. His grin was jagged.
"There's a certain anger in your voice that's lingered since we first met. And your uncle's was just the same."
Ace. The miracle archer. The man who built the Elites. Who had died ending Void. Shane's uncle and father figure.
The Snake's composure cracked. His voice shredded.
"You smug bastard! He knew I was fit to lead! But no — he gave it to you. A powerless outlaw!"
Atlas's ribs howled, but his words were calm iron.
"He gave it to someone who wouldn't throw tantrums and hide behind his ego."
Shane's arms erupted, obsidian shards crawling up like volcanic glass tearing through skin. The sight made even his soldiers falter. Supers. Indoctrinated. Bent to his madness.
Atlas barely took time to notice them, but something about the way they all seemed to share the same glow in their eyes and finger tips in each strike triggered something in him. A distinct trace of power they all seemed to be threaded in sync with. Like clones.
"You didn't," Atlas growled.
Shane sneered noticing Atlas's shock, ripping a drive from Anitta's armor as he walked towards Atlas. He held it aloft.
"I did. Say hello to the next gods of man. And goodbye to your false age."
Atlas's hand snapped. A hidden blade hissed across the air.
The Chicken gagged, throat split, hammer clanging loose. He staggered, one strangled squawk, and the vacuum dragged him screaming into the stars.
Atlas rose, Zion blade in hand.
Falcon flickered, rifle folding into an axe-gun hybrid. His voice was a sneer.
"Running on fumes, old man."
"I haven't even broken a sweat young buck," Atlas said. His hand reached outward — the wind blade ripped free from Anitta's leg with a scream, blood spraying, and shot into his palm.
The Tiger wasted no second, pouncing on him with her first attack. Her punch detonated against his ribs, breaking something deep. He flew across the corridor, smacked bulkhead steel, and saw stars.
Grim should've been here.
The thought came unbidden. The boy grown into a man, Director now, chasing ghosts in other realities while Atlas broke bones in a endless war he was too old to fight.
He twisted his body upwards clenching through the aching pain, caught a chair, and shoved off. His Zion blade slashed Tiger's gauntlet open. Sparks cascaded. She snarled and stomped forward again, every step rattling the deck.
The Falcon blurred. Shots streaked past like meteors, each one cutting metal to molten slag. Atlas deflected, sparks exploding with every swipe. His eyes smoked. Tyranos's ember roared.
The world slowed.
The station's collapse became syrup. Troopers' screams stretched into echoes. The fire's tongue froze mid-flicker. Atlas moved through it — not faster, but deeper. He was walking the god's path now, that cursed gift that made every battlefield his. Every swing, every shot, every heartbeat — visible, predictable, inevitable.
This was Tyranos's power. A craftsman's miracle, a killer's curse. For every victory, a soul owed. For every mastery, a weight on his spine. And he was fifty. His ledger too full.
But it would hold. It had to.
Atlas flowed between the Tiger's stomps, each impact shuddering the slowed world like thunder underwater. He spun, blade carving deep lines across her armor, never the kill blow, always just enough to stagger.
The Falcon came next. He flickered like lightning even in the slowed dimension, rifle-axe splitting air. Atlas ducked, parried, felt the shockwave roll through his broken ribs. The Falcon's movements were perfect — drilled, efficient, merciless. But perfect was predictable. Atlas tilted a degree, enough to let the axe sing by, and slashed his Zion blade across Falcon's thigh. The man screamed, blood spraying, speed stuttering into pain.
The world snapped back. Fire roared. Shots cracked.
Falcon stumbled, limping. Tiger crashed into a console, sparks fountaining.
Atlas stood amid them, eyes burning smoke, ribs breaking with every breath, but still upright.
Behind them, Shane's fingers slammed the pod controls, one lock after another hissing open.
Atlas surged forward, wind blade first. He drove it through Shane's chest. The grey soulish sparks guttered out his chest. Black veins spidered across his torso.
"Next time," Atlas said, voice raw, "send soldiers who know what they're up against."
Shane gagged, blood flooding out his chest. He sagged, drive slipping from his hand — Atlas snatched it clean.
For a heartbeat, the fight was won.
Then shadows around them deepened.
A giant stepped out from them, armored black-on-black, a silver "V" slashed across one pauldron. The brute seized Shane like a rag doll smacking Atlas across the room like a ragdoll, dropping the drive.
The wind blade still lodged in Shane's chest made him immobile, the titan yanked it clean off and dragged the wheezing assailant toward the pod.
Atlas fought his pain yet again, his body screaming at him to stop, and lunged, Zion blade raised.
Too slow.
The brute turned its helm, voice like rust grinding stone.
"The Vaknar will rise."
The pod sealed. Fired. Vanished into light.
Atlas stood, chest heaving, smoke leaking from his lips. Around him the station bled. Fires roared. Agents screamed, clinging to ruptured bulkheads, dragging the wounded to safety. The hull groaned, threatening collapse.
In his hand, the drive pulsed cold.
Vaknar. The word festered in his skull.
Atlas's gaze swept over Anitta writhing, chained by the blade's curse. The Falcon and Tiger broken but alive in the corner. All around the station floor lay the young agents bleeding, some staring at him with disbelief — as if they had seen time itself buckle around them.
Atlas closed his eyes and sighed.
Grim. Damn you, kid. My old ass can't keep this up forever.
Retirement was a lie. Bora Bora was a shattered dream.
Atlas sheathed the Zion blade, straightened, ribs grinding with every breath. His voice was iron when it carried across the ruined station:
"Seal the Gate. Tend to the living. Arrest these idiots."
The order echoed through the station and were understood..
And as the alarms wailed and the stars looked in through the station's wounds, Atlas knew one truth:
His war wasn't finished.
It had just begun.